Forums Forums Wirral Information Wirral info LED Street Lights

I have noticed that the Council ( I assume its them) are starting to replace the old yellow sodium street light with white LED lights. Some have been replaced on Barnston Road, Arrowe Park Road and Pensby Road. On Barnston Road they are only in one section so its easy to compare the two types of street lighting.
Although Im sure the LED lights are cheaper to operate in my opinion they dont do as good a job of lighting up the road and the pavements as the yellow sodium lights do.
Where else is this change happening?

The whole of Wirral is getting done.

I think they could shield the lights better, seeing the bright white light of the bulbs in eye-view from distant lamp posts tends to shut your eyes down a bit making everything else appear darker than it needs to be.

Hard to understand the comment about lighting ability. The LEDs give a much broader spectrum than Sodium and therefore are nearer natural daylight. Certainly my in car camera which can hardly see in Sodium lighting works well in Led Lighting.
Perhaps its because we are more used to the unnatural output of Sodium lighting.

Liverpool are busy changing theirs over too. Drive along Great Howard St which is part sodium, part LED. There's no question the LEDs are better.

The top of the LED lights is flat, meaning birds are gonna poo over the day/night sensor, leading to the light being on all the time. Wonder if that one's been thought through...

I think its all about personal perception, on the stretch of Barnston Road that has both types, it appears to me that the sodium lights give a better total lighting effect than the LED lights.
Of course I could be wrong and Im sure a light meter would solve this. But its just the way it looks to me.

I believe Wirral's LED lights are controlled by radio from a central location, so guano shouldn't be a problem. What DOES seem to be a problem is that many are not working, and I wonder if this is due to poor reception conditions at that point.

Personally, I think they are much better than sodium lights, but I suspect their ability to penetrate fog or mist will be poorer than the yellow sodium light due to blue light being more subject to dispersion.

We'll have to wait for a good fog to see if I'm right or not.

It's the same reason why the French used amber lighting headlights instead of white as it's more noticeable. I wish they'd put a shield on top to stop light pollution though.

The Wirral ones don't need day/night sensors, they are centrally controlled, no idea on Liverpool ones, if you can see a small bee-sting antenna on the top then they are the same.